Pirates of Caribbean 4

MPC

Matte Painter

The first sequence I worked on takes place on the beach just after the mermaid attack. I had to make the destructed lighthouse after the explosion of the roof. A design of it was already made by the conceptArt Department. I built a proper model with separated geometries for the stairs and all the other parts in order to get enough material for the parallax.

There are couple of shots with the lighthouse, all with approximately the same angle. So we gathered all the cameras and calibrated our projection camera in consideration.

The second sequence is the one where Jack Sparrow jumps from the top of a waterfall . The real stage was not scary enough in term of height.

We extended the cliff and use a DigiDouble for Jack Sparrow. We use multiple projection cameras in order to cover all the cliff. We added rocks in a middle of where the waterfall ends to make it even more perilous.

In the last sequence I worked on, Jack is watching the map on a boat and the camera dives into it to land on the jungle. To make this one we started with 2 plates: one of the map and the camera diving into it, the other one of the jungle with the camp. We had to re-create the first camera because the animation was not smooth enough and the lack of resolution when we were close to the map. At the end, this first part finished full CG with full projectionCamera work (hands, map, etc..). Then we blended the first camera with the second one in maya to re-create a new renderCamera. On the second part, a DMP of the camp with the ruins was made from the original plate. The last camera tilt has been made in 2d in Nuke.

Please have a look to the following video to see the breakdown of these shots.